


The Crucible of Necessity

by codedredalert



Series: perfectverse [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Alternia, Angst, Chucklevoodoos, Dubcon or Noncon Moirallegiance, Horn Care, Limeblood Karkat, M/M, Near Drowning, Nudity, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Blurring, Sober Gamzee Makara, abusive, mostly in their heads, ritualistic torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codedredalert/pseuds/codedredalert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CG: GAMZEE.<br/>CG: IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.<br/>CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING SENDING ME BLANK MESSAGES, IS THIS SOME SORT OF RETARD JOKE?<br/>TC:<br/>CG: I’M SERIOUS I’M THIS CLOSE TO BUSTING A FUCKING RAGE ANEURISM ON YOUR ASS HERE.<br/>TC: karkat<br/>TC:<br/>TC: brother<br/>TC: i need you  </p><p> In Which Gamzee Gets Sober, Karkat Gets An Introduction To His Bloodcaste Abilities, And The Two Of Them Get Together In The Most Disastrous Way Imaginable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

\-- tabernacularCachinnations [TC] started trolling conquestGenesis [CG]. --

TC:   
TC:   
TC:   
CG: GAMZEE.  
CG: IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.   
CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING SENDING ME BLANK MESSAGES, IS THIS SOME SORT OF RETARD JOKE?   
TC:   
CG: I’M SERIOUS I’M THIS CLOSE TO BUSTING A FUCKING RAGE ANEURISM ON YOUR ASS HERE.   
TC: karkat  
TC:   
TC: brother  
TC: i need you

 

You pushed your husktop away from you with tingling hands. You’d been going after Gamzee to get his act together for the last three sweeps, but it was no different from the way you told Sollux when he was being stupid and needed to get off the computer to get some sleep, or told Kanaya to fucking give up on Vriska already.

Okay, so you’d had pale crushes on all of them, but with Ascension looming over your head, there was no way you were about to start a relationship with anyone. Sollux hooked up with Aradia, Kanaya came to her senses and quietly broke it off with spiderbitch, and Gamzee…

Gamzee continued to be a complete disaster that you occasionally yelled at over trollian and lately you thought you’d noticed it working. Alone in your block in the quiet heat of day, you sometimes liked to… liked to think he…

You brought one hand to your face, covering your mouth with your palm and breathing through your nose. You were tempted to bite yourself, just to make sure you were awake. Not that you ever got much sleep. Your sopor has always been too thin to keep the dayterrors away.

He just said he needed you.

Ascension could come any time now. 

 

CG: WHAT’S WRONG?   
CG: HEY, KEEP IT TOGETHER AND TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!   
CG: WAS IT YOUR SCREENING?   
CG: DID THEY DO SOME WEIRD SHIT TO YOU, LIKE CARVE YOU UP WITH HOLY KNIVES OR WHATEVER YOUR CRAZY CLOWN CULTISTS DO FOR SCREENING?   
CG: ANSWER ME, FUCKASS!   
TC:   
TC: could a motherfucker get his request on   
TC: for a brother to come and all help out   
TC: because i don’t know what is   
TC:   
TC:   
TC: or motherfucking isn’t   
TC: any fucking more

 

What?

What was going on?

Also… did he just invite you to his hive?

You knew where it was, seeing as that idiot knew fuckall about privacy settings until you did a step-by-step ‘how to turn off the location coordinate feature on trollian’, interspaced with as much frustrated swearing you could insert.

You were worried about him. You pitied him. You were sure of that much.

The question was: how _much_ did you pity him?

Between your imminent death via imperially-sanctioned culling, your vivid imagination of his diamondbroken face and your own very sensible fear saying he would kill you himself if he found out about your blood, you had a lot of reasons to stay the fuck away.

What if he was dying, alone and scared in his hive, and that message was the last Alternia would ever see of Gamzee clowntard Makara?

He messaged _you_ for help.

“Shit. Shit fuckinghell _shit_ ,” you hissed as you tossed your husktop to your pile and pulled yourself out of your ‘coon. “Karkat Vantas, you are a steaming fresh lusus dung heap of romantic trash. You are a hopeless puddle of combusted diamond that you are also drowning in, that’s how far gone you are. Why don’t you just walk your cullbait ass through the Battleship Condescension too, offering a free pap to anyone you come across while you’re at it?”

You went through your ablutions at a speed that would put an Imperial starship to shame, and stuffed your sylladex with everything you could think of. When you ran out of space, you chucked the rest into a woven fibrous carrying device.

You dug your heaviest sunclothes from your pile and were practically out the door when Crabdad woke up and started screeching an unholy row.

“Dad, I’ll be fine,” you yelled. “I don’t have time to strife you! Get your own fucking roe cubes, they’re only in the goddamned thermal hull!”

You absconded into the sweltering heat before he could initiate strife with you anyway. With goggles firmly set, you fell into a brisk jog along the communal paths between lawnrings. You aimed to be long gone before any of the neighbours woke up and decided they’d like to try out their strifekind on the lone panrotten moron who was right on the edge of their territory.

 

===/\===

 

The pink moon had risen and fallen by the time you were anywhere remotely close to the coordinates of Gamzee’s hive. The green moon, a distant, tiny crescent, was already more than half-way through its descent.

“Where the fuck _is_ it?” you growled to yourself. You’d slashed through a forest in a relatively straight line between you and the little purple flag on your husktop, but now your second sickle was starting to lose its edge and your arms felt almost useless. If you ever saw another tree, or bush, or other form of obstructing plant matter, you were going to scream.

Fortunately, there was nothing of that sort where you were looking.

Unfortunately, all you saw between you and where the purpleblood hive _should_ be was grassy, upward sloping ground and a setting green moon in a lightening sky.

“What the hell,” you muttered, trekking your way up. A sharp, unfamiliar scent permeated the air, and a rhythmic, soft crash.

That was your only warning before you saw the ocean.

Vast and dark and more water than you ever wanted to know even _existed_. Every instinct told you to run away, run inland, away from the ones built stronger faster better than you. This was highblood territory, seadweller turf, the dominion of those who had dominion over you. Get away get _away_.

You stumbled back from the steep drop, from the foaming water at its base.

You were _tiny_.

You didn’t belong near this much water, you belonged in grassy places, with shitty lawnrings you only watered so you didn’t look incompetent. _Stupid_ little greenblood to go frolicking in the sun to the fucking _ocean_. No one would miss you, except maybe Crabdad, but he would go back to the brooding caverns after a few perigees and pick another wriggler.

Along the beach you could see a lopsided hive, whimsical and accented with purple.

It was dangerous, he was a highblood, it would be day soon. There were a million excuses to turn back now. What if he found out that you can pass for olive by the binding light of day but not at night when there are only two of you?

The sun was coming up. You were pretty sure that he pitied you at least a bit, in some bizarre way in his clown head.

The cliff matched the coordinates.

You made your excuses and started climbing down.

 

===/\===

 

The hive was unlocked and you decided to be insanely fucking brave and enter without invitation. It smelled musty and stale and unfamiliar. The floor was… cleaner and less cluttered than you would have imagined. In fact, it was too empty, like no one lived here at all.

“Gamzee?” you called as you walked through the hive cautiously. “Gamzee… oh god, don’t be dead. Gamzee?”

You had to scale three floors in the disgustingly large hive before you found anyone. The light of a husktop lit a painted face. On an unfamiliar pile, a troll with elegant, curving horns was stretched long and limp. Any sort of musculature seemed to exist as a sort of afterthought to hold his bones together beneath his skin.

“Gamzee?” you asked.

The troll on the pile shifted, turning his face up. The lines of his throat were so vulnerable you completely forgot what you wanted to say next.

"You motherfucking came for me, brother," he sighed, exhausted and overly grateful. His voice was low, and had this plaintive see-saw to it. You swallowed. "I knew you would."

"Of course I would," you said gruffly, dropping your carrying device and sitting on the floor, an arm’s length away. You lifted a hand, lowered it short of his face to touch the outer edge of the pile. Clown masks and bowling pins, ugh.

"When was the last time you even ate? I mean, fuck, you’re a tower of bones in a troll skin," you said, stealing glances at him and running your fingers over the pile pieces closest to you. “How was your screening? How… how are you? Are you alright? I should—”

One long, bony arm stretched out, and a hand curled into your suncloak.

“You know something? I can’t get my knowing on,” he said apologetically, eyes closed.

His hair was half plastered in his paint. Your hand itched to smooth it away from his face.

You kept your hands on an ugly ass mask like it was a get-out-of-culling-free card.

“Don’t sleep here, you’ll get dayterrors,” you said, almost reflexively. “You’ll get dayterrors down the protein chute so far they’ll perforate your digestion sac. Where’s your ‘coon?”

The hand in your cloak tightened ever so slightly.

“I ain’t got one of those motherfuckers no more,” he murmured.

Your jaw dropped open.

“You're sleeping _dry_? Are you _insane_?”

He shifted and made a sad little chirp – _sorry sorry don’t be mad notmyfault_ —.

“I motherfucking went to see them conscriptsisters like you told me, and they said my miracles ain't fit for a proper motherfucking ascending so they were all removing my temptation they said.”

Those crazy, cultist _bastards._

You bit your lip to keep from snarling because that would do fuckall for him right now.

"Fine. Okay,” you breathed out slowly. “I’ll go make something to eat. No point starving as well as letting horrorterrors lovingly skullfuck you to sleep.”

His opened his eyes just a crack, his lashes clumped together with paint and crusted tears.

“Aw brother, don’t up and _go_ ,” he near-whined. “You just motherfucking got here. We can shoot the wicked breeze or… or I don’t motherfucking know, anything you want.”

You gently extracted your clothes from his cold fingers.

“There’s time for that later,” you promised. “When I don’t look at you and see a starving pan-rotten moron living on half a rust allowance, half of which he uses for greasepaint.”

He curled in on himself, horns digging into his pile. They were a pale yellow, dry and flaking from lack of care.

You absconded.

 

===/\===

 

Something was very, very wrong.

Gamzee’s nutrition block had ground wheat powder and cluckbeast eggs and nothing else. You’d looked. This was worse than Sollux nearing the perigee, and you know the lisping wonder spent most of _his_ allowance on computers.

Gamzee was _purple._ There was no reason for him to _not_ have things.

Your fangs worked over your lips as you mushed the wheat powder and cluckbeast eggs. You came up with these long, flat strips and tossed them in an open boiling cylinder.

Hands snaked around your chest.

“JESUS _FUCK_!” you yelled, bloodpusher hammering. You didn’t even hear them coming, stupid _stupid_ Karkat. You were reaching for your sickles and—

Gamzee rested his chin on top of your head, right between your horns. If your horns were sharper, a single twitch would gash his throat wide open.

You went very still.

"Hey motherfucker,” he sighed, draping himself over your back and melting as much as a sack of bones could melt. You could feel the points of his hipbones and his ribs and his chin.

“Gamzee,” you managed. You took a breath and tried to think of practical things. You couldn’t presume that this was… you didn’t know shit about highblood culture. For all you knew, you could be a block ornament equivalent, or something vaguely cuddly... Cuddly like a scalemate, not a…

Desist, Karkat. Practical things.

“Important question,” you said, raising a shoulder to nudge him.

“Hmmm?” Gamzee hums against your back and your pan whites out and goes full on retard while you tried to find words for ‘do you pity me’ that didn’t make you want to die of embarrassment.

Instead of course you got a display of Karkat Vantas should not be allowed to talk the fuck ever.

“Why don’t you have any goddamn food? Does it not occur to your clownfucked pan that that is a thing you should maybe consider ordering? Give me your credit number, I’ll order for you.”

Did you just tell a highblood that he wasn’t fit to look after himself _oh god you just did_.

“I won’t abuse it,” you promised quickly, wishing you could see his face so you had some sort of gauge on his reaction.

He laughed sheepishly into your hair. He was getting greasepaint in your _hair_. You should be flipping your shit, but you’re not. Not even close.

“Brother, what is mine is yours… except I’ve all gone and forgotten that little number set. Motherfuckers just upped and disappeared from my pan, y’know.”

“Idiot,” you said, raising your hand to blindly slap him across the horns but he kissed your raised palm and all of a sudden you had your hand on his face. You pulled back like you were burned.

"No need to be all shy, my fine brother," Gamzee murmured.

He kissed the tips of your ears.

“What the fuck are you _doing_ ,” you hissed, reflexive fear and embarrassment. “Why the—”

"Shhh," Gamzee said and his teeth, long and jagged beneath your ear, were gentle on your skin. “Let’s both motherfucking get our chill on. Best friend.”

You shivered.

"Gamzee," you whispered, not wanting to startle him. He hummed contentedly. “Gamzee, we... this is pale, right?"

“If that is what you be wanting, motherfucker," he agreed amiably, pressing a kiss to the side of your throat. “Then that is what we will motherfucking be.”

The open boiling cylinder started frothing onto the thermal platform like a rabid barkbeast.

“Shit shit shit shit shit!” you hissed and went for the off switch.

He laughed and _you_ had a _moirail_ , you could hardly believe it.

 

===/\===

 

Gamzee shifted on the pile next to you. He hadn’t let you out of reach since you’d gone to the nutrition block. He had pressed his face to your side and calmed a little when you smoothed his hair back, but over the last few hours became more and more twitchy.

You found Gamzee’s credit number and punched in a food delivery request, but his account was barred from ordering sopor. You were too low to redirect deliveries from your own account, not that you could actually afford sopor that would do anything for him, so you sat there, biting your lip and glaring at the sopor order form with its little purple notice.

His hand reached for yours and you looked at him. He was trembling. Sweat beaded his forehead and nose.

“ _What’s wrong_?” you asked, too loud. Both of you winced. “What’s wrong?” you repeated, softer.

“Brother, they be coming,” Gamzee said hoarsely. “Them motherfuckers be next to the door, waiting to get their schooling on.”

You looked up sharply, but the opening to his block was empty.

“I can close it,” you told him, making to stand.

“ _No!”_ he snarled, throwing his arms around you and hauling you back down to the pile.

“What the _fuck_ , Gamzee.”

“You’ll fall,” he explained, an urgent edge to his voice.

“I’m not going to trip over your pile,” you rolled your eyes even as his concern made you want to purr. “It’s a little dark for me, but I can still see.”

“Not there,” he said, eyes staring at the centre of the block floor. It was perfectly normal, devoid of anything to fall over.

“It’s just floor,” you said and he shivered.

“Din’t use to be so,” he said. “Used to be a great motherfucking hole. And I used to put the poison in to keep it that way, but there ain’t no more of that.”

“Gamzee, trust me. It’s just floor.”

“Well brother,” he said slowly. “You be right, miraculous motherfucker you all being, but it is also being a bridge, and it being a bridge is not a good thing, you getting me?”

“Not really,” you answered.

He shook his head.

“Don’t go, palest brother,” he implored, and you had fuckall in the way of strength on account of spontaneously turning to mush.

“I… sure. Okay,” you said, setting the husktop aside. Your hands were shaking to match him and you curled them in so the nails bit into your palm. You leaned back into the pile.

His eyes never left the space to the door.

“Ain’t so bad now,” he mumbled. “Was worse before you came, brother.”

He took a deep breath, and his exhale was cool against your waist, even through your shirt.

“What happened?” you asked, lightly running fingers over the tip of a horn.

“Motherfuckers came all the way in. They—”

He froze, eyes huge and focusing, unfocusing, still turned towards the door.

“Gamzee?”

He buzzed a warning and drew you closer, snarling at the empty doorway.

“Gamzee, there’s nothing there,” you insisted, even as the highblood resonance of – _stay away from us_ —shook you to your bones.

He tossed his head.

“Brother, all these _voices_. They keep…”

You touched his hair and he recoiled.

“No. No, no no mother _fuck_ ,” he whimpered.

You pulled back, showed him both your open palms, claws pointing up.

“Sorry, look I won’t do it again,” you assured him.

He surged up, all limbs and fire.

“I DON’T WANT—” he shouted, then swayed, confused. “I’m not…”

He gripped you by the shirt and whimpered, a high whine of – _lost hurt distress_ —.

“I can’t hear myself, brother. It hurts,” he gasped. He held you like a life preservation device. “It hurts, it—”

His breath caught and you couldn’t help yourself.

“Are you okay?” you asked tentatively, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He screamed.

“Gamzee? Gamzee! Stay with me, for fuck’s sake, _look at me_!”

He twisted, pushing you into the pile, displacing pins and clubs and other clown junk.

“NO I—don’t. DON’T MOTHERFUCKING TOUCH US. Brother, brother, _Karkat_ _please—_ ”

“Shhhh,” you murmured, clicking deep in your chest.

“ _DON’T MOTHERFUCKING **SHOOSH** ME_ ,” he snarled. “Don’t you FUCKING _DARE_. Pity of the holy motherfucking mirthful messiahs IT HURTS make it STOP!”

“Sh shhh shhhh,” your noisebox just kept going on its own accord. You ran your hand across his brow, down the side of his face, his cheek.

He pulled you into him, almost crushing, then just as quickly pushed you away, raking claws down his sides. His thrashing tossed pile parts everywhere, indiscriminately collecting marks and cuts in his skin. Purple welled from the corner of his mouth and his nose.

You grabbed him by the horns and used your weight to flip him over and hold him down. You were half the spectrum lower, he knocked you clean off him with one arm.

“NO MOTHERFUCKING MORE,” he howled. “I was motherfucking faithful, weren’t I? I ain’t… I said it, I _say_ it, LET THE MESSIAHS _HAVE ME_ IF THEY SO MOTHERFUCKING _WISH_.”

“Shhhh, Gamzee, Gamzee,” you shooshed, scrambling back to grab him by the horns. “It’s okay, it’s okay shhh. God, what’s going on?”

“I can’t…”

“It’s alright. Just… focus on calming down, okay? And take deep breaths, it should help.”

Gamzee mumbled something into your shirt as you papped his head, his back.

“What?” you asked.

“ _SHUT UP_ ,” he roared suddenly.

“Gam—”

“I motherfucking said to SHUT THE HELL UP.”

His eyelids flickered when he cried, and behind the translucent purple there was a violent, glowing orange-red.

“Please, _please_ FUCKING… Make it _stop_ good brother please, please, please…”

“I’m sorry,” you said in the same tone as your useless shushing. “I don’t know how, oh god, I’m sorry.”

“How motherfucking dare you. HOW MOTHERFUCKING DARE YOU MOTHER FUCKING APPROACH THIS HERE ALTAR OF THE MIRACULOUS CEREMONIES? Do you even got your understanding on? DO YOU EVEN GOT YOUR UNDER MOTHERFUCKING STANDING OF WHO YOU GOT BEFORE YOU?”

He screamed again, raw and feral. His body twisted and arched like some horror was clawing its way into his chest.

“Gamzee,” you tried, and tried to hold him down so he wouldn’t hurt himself. “I’m here, I’ve got you, there aren’t any—”

His eyes focused on you for a crazed lucid moment.

“ _Useless_ motherfucking _snowflake_ ,” he hissed. “Blind to the motherfucking MIRACLES OF THE DARK CARNIVAL. I should motherfucking rip your ganderbulbs from where THEY AREN’T BEING OF MUCH MOTHERFUCKING USE NOW ARE THEY?”

“Shoooosh,” you said, horribly conflicted on the endearment and the insults that followed. You _were_ useless though. Useless for any more than papping and mumbling and wishing desperately that whatever was hurting him would stop.

“Hey, listen to me, just me. I can talk all night and all day, I will unleash so much fucking verbiage on your clown ass you could paint the fleet with my word vomit,” you said, low and steady. You had no idea what you were doing.

Gamzee’s screams went to manic laughter.

“Gamzee,” you kept trying to bring him back. “Gamzee, don’t.”

“HAVE ME,” he roared at the ceiling of his respiteblock. “PAIN? THERE IS NO FUCKING PAIN. I HAVE MOTHER FUCKING TRANSCENDED MERE MOTHER FUCKING PAIN!”

He rounded on you, eyes not all the way red, but almost. “Tell me fine, tiny, brother mine. TELL ME ONE MOTHERFUCKING THING.”

Your voice stopped in your throat. He looked through you, head cocked to the side and face contorted into a terrible grin, with your palm still pressed to one cheek. His hands brushed against your jaw, cold, fingers splayed where they went into your hair to cradle your head.

“Do you want to feel the miracles? DO YOU MOTHER FUCKING WANT TO FEEL THE MIRACLES?”

He kissed you on the mouth, deep and unmistakably flush, and you choked on the _wrongness_ of it. His hands in your hair brushed loudly against a horn. You felt hollow in your thorax, like you were stabbing yourself in the bloodpusher only there was nothing there. Your skin crawled, everywhere, where he was touching and where he wasn’t.

You bit down and he pulled back, snarling. You grabbed a great, twisting, beautiful horn and yanked him to the side. He fell, and with your free hand, you papped him right between the eyes.

“Fucking shooosh already,” you hissed. You spared half a second to wipe your mouth and tongue against the back of your sleeve. “Blegh. Shhhh you fucking _disaster_. I am _not_ above a goddamn black reacharound if punching you in the face is what it takes to calm your fucking tits, but neither of us wants _that_. Shoosh.”

He opened his mouth, displaying his terrifying eyeteeth and you covered them with your other hand.

“Shooooosh,” you said, papping firmly. “Shhh, _Gamzee_. Shhh.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, and you rubbed the snarl from his brow and jaw. Half his paint was on you, and you could see patches of grey skin beneath the smudged remainders.

“Shhhhh,” you murmured. “Shhhhhshhhhshh.”

He opened his eyes again, and saw you for real.

“Karkat?” he swallowed. You could barely make the word out.

“Yeah,” you exhaled, relieved and tired and confused. He shuddered and pushed at you weakly.

“Best motherfucking friend,” he rasped, not looking at you. “Precious diamond brother… I… I motherfucking _hurt_ you. I... You should leave before I—”

“Don’t be a fuckass,” you replied shortly, pulling an arm over your waist. You knocked the front of your thinkpan to his. You felt like you were run over by a heard of musclebeasts, and you had been fucking scared and helpless, but he had been _more_ scared.

“Sleep,” you ordered, running a hand down his face to stop him from giving you that look. “Don’t argue, just close your eyes and _sleep_.”

 

===/\===

 

A light tapping on your forehead, a rhythmic drumming that sunk you into the pile, all the way to the floor.

 _Gamzee_? You tried to say. “Gmmmh?”

“Shh, brother,” Gamzee murmured. “Just up and returning the motherfucking favour, is all.”

His hands were over your face, your mouth, your nose, and there was something about a total wreck thinking you were a wreck that made you feel humbled.

You trembled under the long, elegant fingers, looked up at dark eyes and elegant horns. You felt like you were slowly freezing on a green apogee night, where the moon was distant and the hivestem heating went out. You couldn’t go out and fix it, because there were shadows outside that would kill you slowly and sadistically. You would bide and plan from the refuge of the honest cold, and the colder you were the easier it was to slip into a dreamless sleep.

Gamzee’s hand stuttered on your brow and the next thing you know his forehead is pressed against yours, looking into your eyes for something important.

“I can’t see you,” he frowned, and you could feel his brow scrunch together. “You’re green and I can feel it in my pan, you’re all soft and fuzzy, motherfucker.”

His fingers traced your hands, your sides, your shoulders, your face.

“You’re here, ain’t you,” Gamzee said. “So why can’t I motherfucking feel your edges, motherfucker?”

He tilted his head.

“Is edges even a thing you be having, bro?”

You would answer, but staying down and just breathing felt so right.

“Where you at?” Gamzee asked. “WHERE THE MOTHERFUCK YOU AT?”

Holy _shit_ , you were awake now.

“Shhh, the fuck was that?” you asked.

“I’m going to find you,” he promised, and he was looking through you again, like he could see your organs. “I’m going to find you and show you. I can see my purpose now. I FINALLY GOT MY UNDERSTAND ON AS TO WHAT MY MOTHERFUCKING PURPOSE IS.”

His thoratic cage pressed against yours with every breath he took.

“Gamzee, I’m right here,” you said, tried to snap but it came out with no click of teeth in it.

“And my purpose. MY MOTHER FUCKING _PURPOSE_ ,” he snarled into your neck. “Is to prepare the way for the blessed ringshow.”

“What?” you asked and you could feel his teeth as his lips pulled away in a grin. He pushed himself up, hand brushing your eyelids. You sank back into the cold, just a little.

“ _CIRCUS MOTHERFUCKING **COME** UPON US_.”

At first, nothing.

Then rose a whisper, the whisper of sand, a darkening tarp being drawn shut. A congregation ten thousand strong moved into place, silent but for the whisper of their deaths. Cold fingers reached for you in the shadows.

You could _see_ them.

You looked to Gamzee, and his grin was wild and his hair wilder still. There were two of him, one laid on top of the other, like a second skin. The new one that was there all along had paint done up in elaborate, looping patterns. Silver and amethyst adorned his head and arms and hands.

“Your ganderbulbs got their motherfucking SEE on yet?” he asked joyfully. He touched your face.

In the flickering yellow light of the tent, steel so cold it burned was laid against your cheek.

“Now precious motherfucking diamond brother mine, I WILL _DRAG_ YOUR MOTHERFUCKING CORPSE TO THE DARK CARNIVAL.”

The whisper turned to teeth and took you in a rush. Something sick and cloying bubbled from your bones to your face. Your mouth stretched into a manic grin and you laughed and you were crying and above you the prince who held your face laughed and cried too. His tears burned cold on your skin.

An infinity of painted faces and impossible hair and non-existent stares welled up from the walls behind him. It was funny, it was _hilarious._ The joke cracked all the way into you, shards of ice tracing your bones, a deep sharp pain that made you giggle til you screamed. The prince messiahs, one ragged and one in finery, smiled as they poured poison the same colour as you upon your pan.

You couldn’t breathe from laughing. Or maybe hurting.

“Serve the messiahs, brother,” the prince whispered. His paint was smeared into unrecognizability.

“YOU ARE MOTHER FUCKING _DESTINED_ TO SERVE THE MOTHERFUCKING MESSIAHS,” the prince howled, silvered chains swaying madly to catch the light.

“Do you know who the mother fucking messiahs are, brother love mine?” the prince with the smudged paint and the too big shirt asked. His eyes were half-lidded and beautiful orange-red. His expression was gentle and soft, and barely funny at all but he was because…

“Yes,” you gasped.

“ _NO!_ ” you screamed.

“Gamzee, _Gamzee_ **_please_** ,” you begged.

Claws raked down your chest and dug into your arms. Blades in the hands of unfamiliar painted faces knocked along your ribcage, scoring little marks that made you scream and curse and your lover held you down and kissed you wrong, vicious and crushing, sinking his lower teeth into your jaw.

His face blurred in your tears and in the carnival they held fire to your face. You were half blind from the light and the pain, and they are going to break you until there was nothing, nothing left of…

_Who?_

Teeth sank into your shoulder, pain sharp and cold. Brittle nails hammered into you by grinning cultists, who were painted skulls and black nothing, nothingness—

Your chin and neck were wet, lukewarm with blood.

Your blood.

You gasped and grabbed him by the horns.

There were two worlds, and one was a dark, almost empty block.

The real one. You _wanted_ it to be the real one.

“ _Fuck_ ,” you spat, and the two princes looked at you. The one with the softer edges to his face had your colour on his lips.

“It’s not real,” you whispered fiercely. You tried to reach up and touch him, but your arm was heavy, hurting. The circus fell back to shadows in the flare of the husktop you brushed against.

“Shhh,” your voice cracked. “Gamzee, can you see? Just us. Shh.”

Your Gamzee with the smudged paint shuddered. The shadow of the other bared his teeth, but said nothing.

“I love you,” you said suddenly, partly because it was what he needed to hear, and mostly because it was true. “I…” you closed your eyes. “Ahh fuck. I should be angry. I _am_ angry. I should be spewing a fucking goddamn ragesnake on your ass. I am hurting in my goddamn aeration sacs. I am hurting in my internal vertical support column. I am hurting in places I don’t even know words for. And you know what? This is the ultimate proof that I am a panfucked moron and that you are the most pitiful piece of shit to ever need fixing: I _still_ love you.”

You opened your eyes and Gamzee was staring down at you blankly.

Just Gamzee. Just one.

“Well, you fucking clowntard,” you said softly. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

He blinked and a purple tear welled up and plopped onto your face. He started shaking as hard as you think you would if you tried to move.

“That,” he started, slowly. “Brother, what…?”

His eyes skipped over your shoulder, which was leaking your blood all over the place. His brows furrowed and you realised belatedly that _your blood was all over the place, shit shit fuck._

“This be my doing?” he asked, completely wretched.

“Not your fault,” you said on reflex.

“Then why I got the hornsense that you be scared, motherfucker?”

You swallowed and you could almost see his spirit crumble.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m _motherfucking_ sorry, I really am. I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this, brother, you be small and motherfucking angry and miraculous and I love you so motherfucking much, palest diamond brother. I love you. Listen, I love you and I’m so motherfucking _sorry_ , I…”

“No,” you said. “You fucking don’t do that to me right now. Don’t you dare lose it and flip your shit. I am not going anywhere. _I am fine_. I just… _fuck_. Are you blind or something? I… I’m a… not olive. I’m not olive. I’m green but I’m _not olive_.”

His huge hand came out of nowhere to cover your mouth and nose. You could hear the four-beat of your ‘pusher, loud in your aural canals. You didn’t realise how fast you were breathing until you could feel the movement of air against his skin.

“I got my see on to that, precious brother,” he said and you wanted to scream at him.

“There’s something wrong with my _blood!_ ”

“But there ain’t nothing wrong about you,” he said, with simple honesty that made you choke back tears. He looked at you then lowered his eyes.

“Brother, can I get my ask on, if you would be all amenable to letting me fix you?”

And somehow you managed to find the strength in you to wrap your arms around him and say ‘yes, yes of course’.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so embarrassed but here we go~ Sorry for the long wait, if you've been waiting. ^_^  
> This chapter WARNINGS: nudity and near drowning.

 

You stayed for days and nights and days until you couldn’t tell how long it had been. Gamzee still shook with sickness though there was no scent of it on him, just misery, weakness and sometimes madness. The one time you left him asleep on the pile to get the delivery he was so fucking out of it that he went for you with clubkind when you stepped back into his respiteblock. You shooshed the purple madness out of his waking hours and held him through dayterrors but he still screamed in agony and some nights he didn’t know you.  

So many nights and days.

“Brother? Shh, no, shh… I didn’t mean to make you sad motherfucker, I just—I’m sorry, sorry I didn’t mean to…”

His fingers spread tears across your cheeks and you blinked. You hadn’t realised you were crying.

“Best friend, I done wrong by you, best friend,” he murmured. “Palest, you should up and motherfucking lea—”

You nudged him in the jaw with a horn, and yours may be blunt as musclebeast ass, but they’re still solid.

“What did I say about that shit?” you demanded.

“Said not to motherfucking ask again,” he repeated dutifully.

“Right.”

“But I ain’t motherfucking _asking_ , am I?” he said, a gleam in his eyes. “Just _saying_ you all kinds of should, my main motherfucker.”

Gamzee, you’d discovered, could be clever when it suited him. There were more cracks in his thinkpan than thoughts, but he was sharp where he wasn’t broken.

He’d been eating sopor for god knows how many sweeps and he could have been so, so much more. Life would have been good to him.

A fierce sadness ached inside you and you ran a hand through his stupid hair. Your fingers caught in the knots and you picked at the greasy tangles absently. The outermost layer of his horns was a weak yellow and cracked to the point it must hurt.

“Well, I’m banning that too,” you said at length.

“But—”

“Do you actually want me to leave?” you asked sharply and he shifted, arms tightening around you. Gamzee was all languid lines unless he was scared and now you could feel the tension corded up in his bony frame.

“Would be better for you,” he said, then choked on his next words and swallowed. You tapped your fingers along his side, light and rhythmic. You hummed encouragement deep in your chest there his cheek rested. “Would motherfucking be better for you not to get all hurt on account of this motherfucker, and I… I would bide, brother. Maybe even get my laugh on with those shadowy motherfuckers.”

 _Fuck_ how could such simple acceptance stab your pusher when it wasn’t about you at all. Gamzee’s face twisted, pained, under the remnants of his paint. You’d pulled without realising, and let go abruptly.

“I’m not going to let you die, you completely useless idiot,” you retorted. “I’m not leaving.”

“But—”

“ _I’m NOT leaving_ ,” you snarled – _can’t MAKE me_ —.

He tilted his head back, baring his throat to you – _sorry sorry I yield_ — and you felt like the complete asshole you were. 

“I want to take care of you, alright?” you muttered, low and guilty. “I just, fuck, I’m here if you need me, and right now you need _somebody_ because you…”

The warble that came from him was absolutely fucking indecent and you could feel heat clawing at your face. He took your hand in one of his huge spindly ones and pressed a kiss to your palm. Under your fingertips you could feel greasepaint and cold wetness. He was crying.

“Oh my god, you utter disaster,” you said, pulling him closer and placing your chin between his horns.

He let you have his head without hesitation and cold tears soaked into your shirt.

Less than a perigee and he trusted you this much.

You were just another asshole on trollian who yelled at people and kept stuffing his own walkfrond in his facegash, and he trusted you. Sure, people hooked up online, but not like this. It felt like the Empress herself handed you a glass 2x3dent. You felt privileged, powerful and absolutely fucking terrified.

“What’s wrong?” you asked. Your voice sounded ridiculous, trying for soothing and coming out scratchy and annoyed. You swallowed and tried again, one hand stroking long down his back. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t motherfucking deserve you,” he mumbled into your shirt. “Don’t motherfucking _deserve_ all this niceness. I’m all fucked up in the motherfucking thinkpan, and I’m all fucked up in the motherfucking meatspace and you’re too motherfucking good to this brother and I don’t got the motherfucking right to it at all.”

“Shhh, moron. Shhh. I _want_ to be here,” you crooned with a voice you didn’t even know you had, unfamiliar and gentle. “I want to do nice things for you. I don’t give a flying hoofbeast bulge how fucked up you _think_ you are, you still deserve nice things. It is now a decree stamped in the finest fucking diamond dust, there is no denying it. I will _find_ a way to sprinkle ten perigees worth of stupid glitter over the next astounding idiot who says otherwise.”

 His insanely wide shoulders racked with a sob.

“Best friend,” he said, fingers digging into your back. “Best brother, best miracle that ever motherfucking happened. Thank you. Palest motherfucking snowflake, deepest motherfucking _thank you._ ”

Your throat made a couple of soft sounds all on its own and you curled around him tighter.

“I pity you,” you whispered back. “You amazing catastrophe, look at you. You could be so terrifying and gorgeous if you just _ate_ or took a bath or—how are you even _alive_ after this long?”

“Well, I ain’t naming names or nothing, but a certain motherfucker might’ve got his shout on at me,” he said, and you snickered into his hair, disbelief and slow pride. Everything inside you was hot and so fucking in love with this idiot. “And I was all woah look at this angry motherfucker all getting his worry on for a brother, better do as he is wanting, don’t want to make him all angrier. A friendly bro would’ve laid graspfrond to your snout if he was there, y’know?”

You thought back at the countless walls of grey capslock you’d dispensed. You thought of his long fingers tracing the screen of his husktop as if his touch could reach your face and you shivered.

You kissed one of his horns and a huge flake came off.

“ _What the actual fuck_!”

He honked, and you supposed that was a laugh. You nudged him with your knee.

“It’s not _funny_ , horns aren’t supposed to _do_ that. Take better care of yourself, dammit, they’re falling apart like a twelfth perigee leaving that was left out in the sun for half a sweep!”

He lifted his face from your shirt and in the low light the yellow of his eyes was wide, with dark pools of grey.

“Don’t know how,” he said, and you were going to encrypt his goddamn useless husktop in your equally useless modus and punt _both_ out into the fishfucking ocean.

“It’s not that hard. Apply clay, rub, rinse.  Apply polishing cloth, rub, rinse. You can use another polishing cloth after you dry off, but that could be overkill. Highbloods have a bunch of fancy shit for horn health if they can be assed to buy them, but, and this is just a _guess_ , I’d say you don’t.”

“Sounds all sorts of complicated,” he said. He looked up at you, the yellow of his eyes gleaming deviously through his lashes. “Say, brother, you ain’t ever happened to have done this before or nothing?”

You swallowed.

“I can do it for you, if you want,” you offered, ‘pusher loud in your thoracic cage.

“Thanks bro,” he smiled lopsidedly and he placed a kiss slightly off-centre from the hollow where your throat met your thorax.

 

===/\===

 

Gamzee’s ablution trap was big enough for you to strife Crabdad in. Instead of a spray dispenser, it filled up by a small waterfall and you watched the water rise with distrust. It was clear, and you could see the bottom which you’d just scrubbed clean, but it was still _so much water_.

“What’s wrong, palebro?” Gamzee asked, perched on the long edge of the trap. He blinked and then smiled to himself. “Honk. _Palebro_. Heh.”

“Nothing,” you said. You stopped the tap. “Just do your ablutions and—”

Gamzee shed his shirt and his pants and hooked his thumbs through his underwear.

“OHMYGOD, STOP STOP STOP, what are you _doing_?” you screeched and he looked at you innocently, his ears flicking under his mess of hair. You’d knocked half the bottles into the water with your horrified flailing and retrieved them as an excuse not to look at his lanky body, at every thoracic cage strut visible under his skin.

“Was all about to get my ablutions on?” Gamzee offered.

“At least wait for me to leave the block before you get naked, for fuck’s sake,” you muttered, placing the bottles back.

He chirred, uneasy.

“Brother, they would _eat_ you _alive_ ,” he said and your insides fell a little bit. This had been a pretty long good spell too. “You can’t always have the see of them, and if I ain’t there, how am I to tell you so?”

“I’ll be fine,” you said, pulling a sickle from your specibus to show him. “Look, I’m armed.”

Were you even supposed to be encouraging his delusions? You had no idea.

He honked, a little sad and mostly frustrated.

“Brother, that won’t do nothing against them motherfuckers,” Gamzee said matter-of-factly, shaking his head.

“What do you expect me to do then?” you asked, chucking your sickle on the counter.

“Palest, you could stay,” and he puts this plaintive whine behind it, high and – _please_ —and fuck fuck fuck you want to hug him so bad, you want to measure the gaps between his thoracic struts with your fingertips so you know how much they fill out before and after you. “Brother, you said you’d take care of me.”

All the blood in your body has gone to your face. You’ve stepped into a porno. There was no other explanation. The fucking asshole was _dirty talking you holy shit_.

“Motherfucker wouldn’t be opposed or nothing to a palebro helping to wash his back either.”

His back had scratches and rough skin and you could count his vertebrae from across the block. You covered your face with your hands, fingers splayed enough to keep an eye on the general going-ons in the block and the purple fuckhead with a shit eating grin on his stupid face. He was abso-fucking-lutely playing you and you hissed the most half-assed protest in the history of half-assed protests.

He tilted his head back and _fine_. Fine, fuck your sense of decency, you didn’t care anymore.

“Alright, shut up you fucking embarrassment,” you hissed. “Get in and _don’t look here_.”

You turned your side to him and yanked off your turtleneck before you could overthink it. You could vomit out your pusher, it felt strung up so high in your throat that your chest felt empty. You glanced towards him, your hands hovering near the button of your pants.

He was obviously looking sideways through his hair at you.

“Stop staring, or I’ll staple your bulge to your oculars,” you grumbled and he turned his head away and you chucked your pants in a corner, leaving your underwear on

You climbed into the trap and tried not to think of how exposed you were. Of how the slightest scratch would let anyone and everyone see your colour. He already knows but still, you determinedly didn’t think about it and looked round for your idiot boyfriend. Gamzee stuck his head under the water and emerged with his hair all flat.  It covered his eyes but not the bases of his horns, a sickly pale orange. God, you haven’t seen that colour on anyone alive, even in Sollux’s hivebasin.

“C’mere,” you mumble, feeling your skin tingle in the cold water. He sloshes over and happily lays his head in your lap.

“I do mine bottom up, so just tell me if it feels weird and we’ll try it the other way round for you,” you tell him as you wet a cloth in the water lapping at your knees.

You slathered the clay on and gripped with the cloth and started moving, twisting motions and he jolted up, nearly punching a hole through your chin with the tip of a horn.  

“ _Watch it_ ,” you snapped.

“Sorry, sorry. Wasn’t expecting,” he broke off into a gasp. His fingers curled into your knees and he writhed and whimpered as you ran the cloth again.

“We can let them soak first I guess,” you frowned, coaxing his head back down so his horns were submerged. Your fingers brushed his face, and more greasepaint came up under your claws.

“Hey,” you started. He hmmed. “Can I take this off?”

He froze.

“You askin about my face, bro?” he clarified tentatively.

“Your _paint_ not your skin.”

He looked up at the ceiling for a while then grasped your hand.

“I motherfuckin said I got the palest pity for you and I don’t go saying nothing I don’t mean,” he said very seriously. “So yeah you can have that you got your askin on for, best beloved.”

He went silent and you tried not to let your hands jitter as you rubbed cleanser in little circles with the soft pads of your fingers and the greasepaint got under your claws anyway. It took two rounds of cleanser and regular face wash before the paint was properly cleaned off.

His face was all angles now that smeared paint didn’t disguise how light fell sharp on his nose and cheek. He looked more like the pre-ascension troll he was.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful, dumb shit,” you muttered as you let the back of your hand brush against his now clean face.

He tucked his chin in and chittered a little nervously. You lifted your hand away quickly.

“Too much?” you asked.

He shook his head a little, but didn’t open his neck again. You felt the loss like rejection and you mentally slapped yourself. You wouldn’t be able to open up even a tenth as much as he had. Well, now that his horns were out of the water…

“Should I start on these again?”

No answer but you could feel the movement of his tiny nod against your skin.

You scrubbed gentle as you could but every tiny movement had him desperately pressing his head further into your lap. Claws digging into your knees, close to breaking skin enough to bleed. You bared your teeth against the pain and didn’t say anything about it. It was the least you could do to commiserate.  

“Sorry, just a bit more,” you said, words short as you held your breath to not swear at the pinpoints of pain. You stripped away the dead, flaking yellow and there was a more vibrant layer coming through, proof you’d actually gotten him to eat grubmeal instead of just wheat powder.

You switched to a polishing cloth and he hummed appreciatively.

“Motherfuck yeah that’s—”

He purred and lost the rest of his sentence. You ran the cloth over his horns, wet, and then wrung out damp. You couldn’t get rid of all the cracks, there had been too much damage to be fixed just like that, but it was better. Less likely to crack too now the flaking layer was off. The rest would grow out. You would make sure of it.  

You tested the pad of your finger against the very tips, sharpened to beauty standards that you would never be able to achieve, before deciding your work here was done. You patted his shoulder, which ended up slightly splashy as the water level rose.

“Hey, you need to get up so we can get out of the water before I grow gills and radioactive algae or something.”

Silence. 

“Gamzee? If you fell asleep in the water I will drop kick you into the goddamn ocean where you can discover first hand that your almost-gills don’t fucking count for purposes of staying alive while submerged.”

He stayed all soft lines but cracked open an eye.

“Who you all up and being motherfucker, give me the telling of that.”

A familiar sickening chill down your spine, a threat. A brush of those shadows across the edges of your pan.

“We were getting your horns cleaned, remember?” you said.

There was a long moment where there was nothing in his eyes, like your words just went straight through his head without stopping.

“Let me rephrase. I am Karkat, I am your moirail, and I just spent a fucklong time polishing your rack and my ass is numb from sitting here. Yes, that’s how long it took, your horns are ridiculous. Now, get up so we can wash off your dead horn bits. Remember me yet?”

“Oh. Hey beloved mine, I got my remembering on,” he smiled, sheepishly delighted to see you, like you weren’t there the whole time. He twists and suddenly his wet arms are around you, one slung over your shoulder and one around your waist, his face pressed to your vulnerable stomach.

You slip and land on your back with a splash and thud.

“Argh, you embarrassment!” you yelped. You could feel his fangs against your skin.

He turned his face to you and smiled, dopey and eyes shut.

“I love you,” he said, and your bloodpusher immediately tried to slam itself through your thoracic cage to beat itself senseless on the bottom of the ablution trap. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t quite all there, you knew the look by now, and it did something to you knowing that he was so far gone but still...

“Me too,” you said quietly and he laid kisses on your cheek.

“You make s brother all want to motherfucking stay with you all of time,” he said. “You’re amazing, how you got all this useful know how up in you. You keep on bein’ you, Karbro, and I’ll keep those motherfuckers outside right on staying outside _the fuck away from us_.”

“Shhhh,” you pet him on the back. “Just us.”

“Just us,” he agreed. “Just us and the carnival. Know of the carnival, my brother? It be motherfucking full of motherfucking miracles, y’know.”

You didn’t say anything, just frowned and reached for his face with both hands. He caught your wrists and leaned you back

“Miracles like you, motherfucker,” he continued, voice so sweet you could die. “I could paint the moon with you. I could paint a thousand moons and they would all be motherfucking rapturous. You’re the best motherfucking miracle any brother could ever get his hoping on for.”

He kissed over your bloodpusher, across random struts of your thoracic cage. He kissed your uppermost thoracic structures, and then lifted your hand by the wrist to kiss your palm.

“Your fronds would break like the music of the tents,” he said, and through your fingers you couls see his eyes edging orange.

“Gamzee.”  

“Shhh shhh brother.” He let go of your hand and ran his fingertips over your face, and you were sinking, sinking.

The water was warmer than he was. Water was in your hair, creeping into your aural shells, muting him in waves. Danger. Water wasn’t safe. Water like ablutions, running over skin was fine. Water creeping up your body, less fine.

You could see him talking to you, but couldn’t hear him over the water lapping at you’re your ears. He smoothed your eyes shut. The water went up to your cheek and you had to tilt your head back to keep breathing, open your throat to keep your nose and mouth above the water. Water touched your eyelids, crept up further still.

Your ‘pusher beat loud in your thoracic cage, made louder by the water. You could hear its pulse, amplified next to the rush of water still adding to the trap. You could hear Gamzee now, voice distorted and far away.

“Miracle snowflake sugargrub bone motherfucking brother love mine.”

His fingers skimmed underwater, a rush of silver bubbles and noise, cold against your eyes and loud against your aural shells.

“Green like the littler moon,” Gamzee hummed, an eerie song through the water. “Best green any brother ever set ganderbulbs on.  Any wall with you to paint with, I would set forever with diamond dust.”

The water was lapping up to your cheeks.

“Gamzee let me up,” you said.

His hands were still on your face. Maybe you didn’t speak loud enough.

“Gamzee, the water. Fucking let me up before—”

Water lapped at your nose and mouth and you spluttered you tried to sit up but his fingers across your forehead and in your hair pressed you gently and unyieldingly down.

“ _Gamzee_!”

You sputtered, took half a breath just before any words you wanted to say were just short bubbles.

Gamzee smiled, long fingers ice against the heat desperately gathering in your face.

Holy fuck this was it you were going to die.

Everything in your body screamed and you kicked up at him. You made contact with his thorax, glanced off a bony hip.

Chill. Knives of deep water, pressurised darkness so dark no troll could see, cold till it was hot, a growl so subsonic it touched you through the trap through the water—

_Can’t fight—_

Highblood _._

 _Highblood_ , you had to submit, submit, your chin went up as far as it could, your neck offered, just appease let me _please_

_submit run away submit_

Then another voice, a tiny strange one that raised your arm and fit your palm to his bare face, swimming with silvered distortions.

 

_Drop him._

 

So you _did_

 

    and

           you

 

 

  ** _fall_** _._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd. Concrit welcome.


End file.
